Bottle-capping machine.



L. H. BRINKMAN.

BOTTLE GAPPING MACHINE: APPLICATION FILED JAN. 1B, 1913.

1,114,105. ,1 Patented Oct.20,1914.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

mm nmvmn V M MM 7 Br 2 ATTORNEYS L. H. BRINKMAN. BOTTLE GAPPING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED JAN. 18, 1913.

1,1 14,105. Patented Oct. 20, 1914.

2 SHEBTS8HEET 2.

WITNESSES 1 v INVENTOR ATTORNEYS Y UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

LOUIS H. BRINKMAN, OF GLEN RIDGE, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR TO GENERAL INDUS- TRIES COMPANY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION OF NEW YORK.

BOTTLEfCAPPING MACHINE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed January 18, 1913. Serial No. 742,816.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Louis" H. BRINKMAN, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Glen Ridge, county of Essex, State of New Jersey, have invented certain new.

driven at such relative rates that the capping head makes acomplete revolution for each bottle fed to the platform by the feed ing means and is caused to cap each bottlefed to the platform by the feeding means.

It also has for an object the provision of improved means for transferring bottles and the like from a suitable rotatable bottle supporting table and presenting them to the capping device In the present embodiment of my invention,'tl1e capping head is operated by fluid pressure and is controlled by fluid pressure controlling apparatus to cause automatic reciprocation of the head once during each revolution.

Further objects, features and advantages will more-clearly appear from the detailed description given below taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which forni a part of this specification.

In the drawings Figure 1 is an elevation partly in section, of a bottle capping apparatus embodying my invention in its preferred form in combination with parts of afilling apparatus with which the capping mechanism is combined. Fig. 2 is a detail in section, of the hopper of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 3is a transverse section of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1, taken on the line 'III-III of 1. Fig. 4 is a detail in section, of the fixed guiding means shown in Figs. 1 and 3.

Referring to the various figures, 1 represents a main driving shaft having a pulley 2 thereupon, so that the shaft may be driven from any suitable source of power. The shaft 1 is provided with a beveled gear 3 Patented Oct. 20, 1914:.

meshing with a beveled gear 4 fixed upon I the shaft 5 and operating upon ball bear- 'ings 6. Frame pieces 7 support journal bearings 8, in which the lower end of the shaft 5 revolves. Above the bearing6 the shaft 5 carries a circular rotating bottlesupporting platform 9 supported upon nut 10. The bottle-sup orting platform 9 has its top flush with a xed table 11. The table 11 upon one side is cut away in the arc of a circle, as shown at 12 (Fig. 3) to accommodate or fit the path of supporting members 13 carried upon upright standards 14, in turn carried by lateral arms 15 upona central shaft 16. Parts 13,14, 15' and 16 form partof a bottle filling machine of any suitable character.

It will be understood that the supports 13 are'spaced equidistant from one another in a complete circle about the shaft 16, only a few of thesupports 13 being shown for illustration. Each of the supports 13 is provided with a rear wall 17 and is adapted to support the bottles before, during and after filling, the wall 17 preventing the bottles frombeing pushed ofi of the supports 13. Any suitable devices may be added to the parts 13 to 17 inclusive, to accomplish the filling operation as the bottles revolve with the shaft 16.

The frame of the capping apparatus is provided with two vertical posts 18 and 19, and about the post 19 is. located a pulley frame 20 carrying a pulley 21, carrying a belt 22. The frame 20 may be suitably adjusted to various positions .by means of bolts 23 and 24. -The belt 22 passes about the shaft 5 so that asthe shaft 5 rotatesit drives the belt 22 passing about the idle pulley 21. A fixed guide 25 is secured to the table 11 by means of brackets 26. For

a portion of its length the guide 25 is-bent in the arc of a circle of the same diameter as that of the table 9, as clearly shown in Fig. 3. The ends of the guide 25, however, extend forwardly more or less parallel to the belt 22.

j The shaft 5 has secured to it. curved fingers 27, and the guide 25 at one point is cut away, as at 28 (see Fig. 4), and pivoted to the guide member 25, at 29, is a flat finger '30 normally forced inwardly through opening 28 toward the shaft 5 by a spring 31.

Rigidly carried by the shaft 5 is a fluid pressure operated bottle capping device 32,

tom a capping head 33 which is reciprocated in a line parallel to the axis of the shaft 5 for carrying out the capping voperation. Also rigidly carried with'the shaft 5 'is a hopper 34 having an inclined bottom 35. The shaft 5 passes up through the center of the hopper 34 and carries in the hopper a wooden friction wheel 36 constructed to 1'0- tate in a plane parallel to the axis of the shaft 5. The friction wheel 36 engages a second friction wheel 37 which is rigidly fixed or locked to the framework 38, which is in turn secured to the upright 18, by frame-piece 39. It will therefore be seen, that upon rotating the hopper about the axis of shaft 5 disk 36 will be caused to rotate by means of its engagement with the fixed friction disk 37. i

The disk 36 has rigidly secured thereto an aluminum disk 40 having a beveled periphery and carrying horseshoe magnets 41 whose poles abut and conform to the surface of the periphery of the disk 40. -Extending from the top of the disk 40 is a chute 42 adapted to collect the bottle caps after-they are picked up by the magnets 41, and thereby arranged upon the surface of the disk 40. The chute 42 extends down about the periphery of the disk 40 and out through the bottom of the hopper. In order that the caps supplied to the chute 42 may be fed to the capping head33 a second chute 43 is provided, connected with the reciprocating capping head 33, and telescoping over the chute 42, as clearly'shown in Fig. 1. By this arrangement, while both the hopper 34 and capping device 32 are rotating the caps may be supplied to the capping head, even while permitting it to have a reciproeating motion, with respect to the hopper.

In order that the capping device 32 may be caused to operateonce during each revolution thereof a fixed cam 44 is provided on y the underneath side of the disk 37. Operating through a bracket 45 secured to the shaft 5 is a pin 46 normally forced upwardly by a spring 47, "having one of its ends abutting against the bracket 45 and the other against a washer 48'held' in place byanut 49 on the pin 46. The pin 46 passes down into the capping device 32 and when it is rotated beneath the cam member 44 it is forced downwardly against the action ofthe spring 47 by cam face 50, and by this movement,

in any suitable manner, operates valves, or in any other suitable manner, causes the operation of the capping device so that it will force downwardly the capping head 33 in order to apply a cap to a bottle there beneath. For example, if the fluid motor of bottle supporting platform 9.

my aforementioned Patent 1,094,522 be used,

it is only necessary to loosen the set-screw 50 shown in Fig. l'of said patent as securing the rod or pin 47 of that drawing (and corresponding to the pin 46 shown as a part of the motor controlling mechanism in the drawings herein), and to substitute for said pin 47 the pin 46 herein shown as operated by the cam '44. The capping device 32 is (preferably designed so that the capping head 33 will automatically return upon the capping operation being finished.

In order to supply fluid under-pressure to the capping device 32 a pipe 51 is connected to the upper end of the shaft 5 by means of suitable coupling devices 52 and 53 and packing 54, so that the shaft 5 may revolve while the member 51 is maintained stationary. The upper end of the shaft 5 is hollow, as indicated by dotted lines at 55,

,and down to the point 56 where the conduit formed in the beginning by the hollow shaft 5 extends downwardly at one side of the shaft 5, as at 56. The end of the conduit 56 is connected with the fluid supply inlet of the capping device 32 by means of flexible tubing 57. Also the lower end of the tube 5 is made hollow, as indicated by dotted lines 58, and this hollow portion is connected with the exhaust of the capping device by means of flexible tube.59. At its lower end the hollow shaft 5 is loosely connected to a receiving container 60 which is held stationary,

the lower end of the tube 5 revolving there- Exhaust pipe 61 conducts the exhaust fluid away from the chamber 60.

In operation, bottles are placed upon the filling machine, embracing parts 13 to 17 inclusive, and are filled thereby in any suitable manner. After the bottles 62 have been filled, and as they rotate in the direction of the arrow 63 (see Fig. 3), the fixed guiding means 25 engages one side of the bottle and forces it off of its supporting member 13. The space between the fixed guiding member 25 where it is thus engaged by a bottle, and the belt. is varied so that as the bottle is pushed along by the wall 17 the belt acts to press the bottle against the guiding member 25, and as the belt is continually moved it rolls the bottle along against the fixed guiding means 25 and off of its support 13, and finally onto the rotating As soon as the bottle 62 has been thus transferred onto the bottle-supporting platform 9 the rotating fingers27 engage the bottle 62 and thereupon force it positively about the shaft 5, as a center. In this movement the bottle 62 engages the spring pressed finger 30, which tends to force the bottle 62 toward the fingers 27 and hold it firmly thereagainst. As soon as the bottle 62 is thus firmly held by fingers 27 and 30 the capping device 33 is caused to operate by the pin 46 engaging izio - cap is supplied thereto through the chutesspeed of the whole apparatus.

.vice is operated by fluid pressure the cap-'1 the capping device may be rotated at high cam member 44, so that the capping dies in. the head 33 are reciprocated downwardly and quickly place a cap upon the mouth of the bottle. As soon as the bottle has been thus capped the capping head automatically returns this whole operation-being accomplished in a very small fraction of a revo-. l-ution of the shaft 5. Thereupon the fingers f carry the bottle farther about the'shaft 5 as; it is continually rotated and the other side of the belt 22 forces the bottle against the other side of the fixed guide 25 and rotates the bottle thereagainst and out onto the table 11. As soon asthe capping dies in the head 33 are removed from the bottle a new 42 and 43. As will be seen from the drawings, the capping head and bottles are carried close to the axis of rotation of the capping head and platform 9, whereby they may rotate at high speed without being sub-y jectedto a great amount of centrifugal force. I

From the above it will be seen that I have provided exceptionally eflicient and simple mechanism for capping bottles as fast as they maybe supplied by the filling appara-. tus. In view of the fact that the capping. de-

ping operation may take place quickly, and f in view of the simplicity of the arrangement 1 speed, so that a single capping device may, operate at suflicient speed to cap each bot tle presented by the filling apparatus. In this respect my improved apparatus is distinctly advantageous over those devices which provide a large number of separate capping? devices circularly arranged, in which each} capping device is only capable of working upon a small portion of bottles as they are? filled. By providing the belt 22, as shown,; the bottles are moved along between the belt 22 and, the fixed guiding means at approximately half the speed of their movement' when upon the table 9 so that the speed of the bottles is gradually changed as desired,-i this very much facilitating the increase in By providing frictlon driving disks 36 and 37 in the hopper there is no danger of the hopper apparatus becoming clogged by means of caps etting into the driving gears. Should a cap ecome engaged between the driving gears the same will pass right through, the gear 36 moving laterally under the pressure exerted thereagainst and in opposition to a spring 63 coiled about the shaft 64, upon which the disk 36 is rigidly secured. One end of the spring 63- abuts against the bearing of the shaft 64 while the other end abuts against the ball bearing device 65 held upon t 1e shaft '64 by nut 66.

Although I have described my improvements in great detail and with respect to bination of a rotary shaft,

one particular embodiment thereof,'never theless, I do not desire to be limited to such details except as clearly specified in the appended claims since many changes and rad: ical modifications may well be made without departing from the spirit and scope of my invention in its broader aspects.

Having fully and clearly described my improvements, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

1. In a bottle capping 'machine, the comfor securing a cap upon each bottle fed to the platform, means for feeding bottles to the platform, means for driving the shaft and the bottle feeding means at predetermined relative rates such that the capping head will make a complete revolution during the interval that successive bottles are delivered to the capping platform so that the capping head will come into. position to cap each bottle delivered to the platform, and means for causing relative reciprocatory movement between the platform and capping head once during each revolution of the shaft to cap each bottle delivered to the platform.

2. In a bottle capping machine, the combination of a rotary table carrying bottles to be capped,'anda rotary capping platform, the table being of relatively large diameter and provided'with a number of bottle supports and the capping platform being of relatively small diameter, a single rotary capping head having cap-securing devices carried at its lower end, means for rotating said capping head and the table at such relative rates that the capping head is rotated once' during such movement of the j table as corresponds to'the distance between itssuccessive bottle supports, means for transferring the bottles from the table to the capping platform one for each revolution of the capping head, and means for causing relative reciprocatory movement between the capping head and the platform once during each rotation of the capping head to cap each bottle'delivered to the platform.

3. In a bottle capping machine, the coma rotary platform surrounding the shaft. for receiving and supporting a bottle during the capping operation, a single capping head mounted on the shaft to rotate therewith and having means for securing a cap upon each bottle fed to the platform, means for feeding bottles to the platform, means for driving the shaft and the bottle feeding means at predetermined relative rates such that the capping head will make a complete revolution durmg the interval that successive bottles and capping head once during each revolution of the shaft to cap each bottle delivered to the platform. p

4:. In a bottle capping machine, the combination of a rotary table carrying bottles to be capped, and a rotary capping platform, the table being of relatively large diameter and provided with a number of bottle supports and the capping platform being of relatively small diameter, a single rotary capping head including a fluid pressure controlled capping piston carrying cap-securing devices at its lower end, means for rotating said capping head and table at such relative rates that the capping head is rotated once during such movement of the table as corresponds to the vdistance be-' tween its successive bottle supports, means for transferring the bottles from the table to the capping platform one for each revolution of the capping piston, and means for causing automatic reciprocation of the capping piston once during each revolution' thereof to cap each bottle delivered to the porting a bottle during platform.

5. In a bottle capping machine, the combination of a rotary shaft, a rotary platform surrounding the shaft for receiving and supthe capping operation, a single capping ead mounted on the shaft and carried close to the axis of rotation to rotate with the shaft and having areciprocatoryfluid pressure controlled capping piston carrying means for securing caps upon bottles, means for feeding bottles to the rotary platform, means for driving the shaft and bottle feeding means at predetermined relative rates such that the capping head will make acomplete revolution during the interval that successive bottles are delivered to the capping platform to come into position to cap each. bottle delivered to the platform, and means including fluid pressure controlling apparatus for causing automatic reciprocation of the capping piston once during each revolution of the capping head to cap each bottle delivered to the platform.

6. In a bottle capping machine, the combination of a rotary shaft, a rotary platform surrounding 'the shaft for receiving and supporting a bottle during the capping operation, a single capping head mounted on the shaft and carried close to the axis of rotation to rotate with the shaft and having a reciprocatory fluid pressure controlled I capping piston carrying means for securing caps upon bottles, means for feeding bottles to the rotary platform, means for driving the shaft and bottle feeding means at predetermined relative rates such that the capping head will make a complete revolution during the interval that successive bottles are delivered to the capping platform to come into position to cap each bottle delivered to the platform, means rotatable with the shaft for engaging each bottle fed to the platform to move it around the shaft synchronously with the capping piston in position to be operated upon thereby, means including fluid pressure controlling apparatus for causing automatic reciprocation of the capping piston once during each revolution of the capping head to cap each bottle delivered to the platform, and means for delivering caps to the cap-securing means at the lower end of the capping piston, including a chute terminating at the lower end of the capping piston and rotatable therewith about the shaft.

7. In a bottle capping machine, the'oombination of a rotary shaft, a rotary platform surrounding the shaft for receiving and supporting a bottle during the capping operation, a single capping head mounted on the shaft to rotate therewith and having a capping piston carrying cap securing means, means for feeding bottles to the rotatable platform, means for driving the shaft and bottle feeding means at predetermined relative rates such that the capping head will make a complete revolution during the interval that successive bottles are delivered to the capping platform to come into position to cap each bottle delivered to the platform, means rotatable with the shaft for engaging each bottle fed to the platform to move it around the shaft synchronously with the capping piston in position to be operated upon by the piston, means for delivering'caps to the cap-securing means at the lower end of the capping piston, including a chute terminating at the lower end of the capping piston and rotatable therewith about the shaft, and means operatively controlling the pistonto cause it to be reciprocated once during each revolution of the shaft. p

8. In a bottle capping machine, the combination of a rotary table carrying bottles to be capped, and a rotary capping platform, the table being of relatively large diameter and provided with a number of bottle supports. and the capping platform being of relatively small diameter, a single rotary capping head rotatable concentrically with the capping platform about a common axis and carried close to said axis, said capping head being provided with a fluid pressure controlled capping piston carrying cap-securing devices at its lower end, means for rotating said capping head and table at such relative rates that thecapping head is rotated once during such movement of the table as corresponds to the distance between its successive bottle supports, means for transferring the bottles from the table to the capping platform one for each revolution of the capping piston, means rotatable with the shaft for engaging each bottle delivered to the capping platform to move it about the shaft synchronously with the capping piston during a portion of, the complete revolution of the piston, means for causing automatic reciprocation of the capping piston once during each revolution thereof to cap each bottle delivered to the platform, and means cooperating with the means for moving the bottle synchronously with the capping piston for discharging the bottle fromthe platform.

9. In a machine of the class described, a

rotary capping device, and means fortransferring the bottles to the capping device at a speed somewhat less than the speed of the capping device, whereby the bottles are gradually brought up to speed, said means embracing a belt passing about the axis of the rotary capping device.

10. In a machine of the class described, a rotating shaft hollow at each end, and a fluid pressure operated capping device rotating with said shaft, the fluid inlet of the capping device being connected with one hollow end of the shaft and the fluid outlet of the capping device being connected with the other hollow end of the shaft.

11. In a machine of the class described, a

' device carried thereby, a hopper for supplying caps to the capping device also carried by said shaft, means in the hopper for arranging the caps, a fixed drivlng member acting to operate said means as the hopper revolves, and cooperating devices carried by said fixed driving member andthe capping device for causing the operation of the capping device at predetermined intervals.

13. In a machine of the class described, a

rotating shaft, a rotating platform 'surrounding the shaft for holding the bottles during the capping operation, a fluid pressure operated capping device carried by said shaft, and means for causing the operation of said capping device at predetermined intervals in the rotation of said shaft.

In testimony whereof, I have signed my name to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing wltnesses.

LOUIS H. BRINKMAN. a 

